Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 6).djvu/203

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AT THE END OF BOONE'S ROAD
203

bacon.' The pay was two shillings sixpence per day, and the work extended over twenty-two days in the summer of 1792."[1]

The Kentucky legislature passed an act in 1793, which provided a guard for pilgrims on the Wilderness Road; in 1794 an act was passed for the clearing of the Boonesborough fork of the road, from Rockcastle Creek to the Kentucky River. In 1795 the legislature passed an act to make the Wilderness Road a "wagon road" thirty feet wide from near Crab Orchard to Cumberland Gap. Proposals being advertised for, the aged Daniel Boone addressed Governor Isaac Shelby the following letter:

"Sir
feburey the 11th 1796

after my Best Respts to your Excelancy and famyly I wish to inform you that I have sum intention of undertaking this New Rode that is to be Cut through the Wilderness and I think My Self intiteled to the ofer of the Bisness as I first Marked out that Rode in March 1775 and Never Re'd anything for my trubel and Sepose I am No Statesman I am a Woodsman and

  1. The Wilderness Road, pp. 48–50.